WASHINGTON – The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the new C.I.A. director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

Full Story Here:
NYT: Blackwater tied to CIA death plot

“The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects.” That we have been TOLD about…

Let me make one thing very clear, no one at the CIA or Blackwater is going to look at you and say, “Sure, we captured old so-and-so and we killed 3 of his top aids too…”

It just doesn’t work that way. The overly sensitive and incredibly PC among us don’t believe in political kidnapping, taking terrorists prisoner, and/or killing, ie: assassinating them. We have LAWS against that sort of thing you know. Why would the Agency, or any Blackwater operator knowingly expose himself to a war crimes or murder charge?

It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in downtown Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to renew the company’s operating license.

Excessive force huh?

Let me point something else out for those less than well informed individuals that have no idea what fighting an insurgency in a place like Iraq is all about. Do ANY of you know the difference between an Enemy Combatant and a civilian? In a theater like Iraq or Afghanistan? Anyone??

Once the shooting stops and the smoke clears, a CIVILIAN is the one that managed to hide his AK-47 before anyone else. That’s it, the only difference. 10 seconds prior he was killing everything in front of him, but he laid that weapon DOWN before you got a round in him, so, YOU are wrong, YOU are now guilty of killing a civilian and YOU are a WAR CRIMINAL. Too bad, so sad. Leavenworth here I come!

Here’s another little truth that needs to be spoken also. Today’s Rules of Engagement and the Geneva Convention have outlived their usefulness. They apply to doing battle with an enemy that is connected to a UNIFORMED army. The insurgencies of Islam are NOT an ARMY in the sense we are used to fighting, or that the Rules of Engagement and Geneva Convention were put in place to govern. We are fighting an organized rabble, nothing more. And as I pointed out previously, a civilian is a moot point in a firefight in the current scenario of COMBAT action in the world today.

And let me ask the readers one more question. How many American diplomats were killed while under the protection of Blackwater?

The answer would be NONE. Blackwater never lost a client that they were contracted to protect. Now I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a pretty good statistic. The Secret Service can’t boast of that fact. So, again I ask, excessive force?

Do the LIVE diplomats feel that they were kept alive by excessive force or good protection? If they lived to tell the tale, and if truth be told, I am betting there are many diplomats that are thanking God for Blackwater.

The C.I.A. this summer conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees. The officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta’s predecessors did not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far enough developed.

As said previously, not developed to the point of being public knowledge, or used and acknowledged.

One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional scrutiny.

“It’s wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin,” the official said. “It went well beyond that.”

There’s some folks that don’t want to be caught without a seat when the music stops. Maybe they don’t still have the old Get Out of Jail card, if such a thing were to exist that is. Personally, I think Panetta is covering HIS ass. And that’s understandable. You don’t want to go to jail for a mistake your predecessor may have made. But in MY opinion, Panetta can’t find his ass with both hands and a Garmin GPS unit. So, he’s going into duck and cover mode, and taking any and every little thing he can find to the Senate, and Obama. He IS, after all, Obama’s man at CIA.

An executive order signed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 barred the C.I.A. from carrying out assassinations, a direct response to revelations that the C.I.A. had initiated assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign politicians.

Maybe it’s time to take that particular order out of the play book. We can NEVER defeat radical Islam, and the insurgents that carry on their WAR, not if we continue to play by the rules.

I have long felt that our leaders have lost the will to win. We only allow our troops to fight PC wars. The Bush White House was notorious for micromanagement. Our troops are saddled with Rules of Engagement that get our troops killed. We don’t prosecute our enemies to the fullest. We don’t seek VICTORY. We seek an outcome that will offend the least number of people. That is NOT an outcome I can support.

Wars can’t be fought and won in that fashion. Wars must be fought to a definitive conclusion. Wars must be fought with no other thought in mind besides real, full, total and absolute victory. War is waged to bring full and total annihilation to your enemy. To fight a war otherwise is simply ridiculous and a waste of lives, time and money.

Given the current Commander in Chief, his political correctness, and his obvious fear of ANY confrontation, I am guessing that we won’t be seeing a change in OUR tactics any time soon.

To the boys and girls at Langley, VA. and Moyock, N.C., right about now might be a great time to do that duck and cover thing yourselves.

I’m pretty sure the top layer at Langley already has…

Sept. 30, 2007 – Since the fatal Sept. 16 Blackwater USA shooting in Baghdad’s Nasoor Square, officials from the private security company have insisted that their guards were responding to fire from “armed enemies.” Yet an extensive evidence file put together by the Iraqi National Police and obtained by NEWSWEEK—including documents, maps, sworn witness statements and police video footage—appears to contradict the contractors’ version of events. A confidential incident report, which has been provided by Iraqi National Police investigators to American military and civilian officials, concludes that the Blackwater vehicles “opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.”

A nine-minute police video made in the moments after the shooting shows helicopters similar to those used by Blackwater still hovering over the wreckage of charred, smoking and bullet-pocked cars. The graphic images include footage of burned human remains and show the street littered with brass bullet casings. They also show what appears to be a police officer waving a pistol at the scene; the footage was captured by a different police officer, who had run over from the nearby Iraqi National Police headquarters. (Portions of the video have been previously broadcast; it was recorded without sound.)

Iraqi National Police investigators also believe that Blackwater’s helicopters fired on the cars from above, according to confidential police documents and interviews with senior police officials. A memo written on Sept. 17 by the lead Iraqi police investigator states that shortly after the shooting began, “helicopters opened fire from the air toward the cars and civilians.” Gen. Hussein al-Awadi, the commander of the Iraqi National Police, told NEWSWEEK that the trajectory of some of the bullet wounds could only have been caused by fire from the air. “If anyone moved—whenever they saw someone leaving—either the convoy or the chopper shot him,” says Ali Kalaf Salman, an undercover Iraqi National Police officer who was working as a traffic cop at the scene. (One of the police documents lists 17 fatalities and many more wounded from the shooting. Other accounts have put the death toll at 11.)

Blackwater officials have acknowledged that their helicopters were at the scene of the shooting, but have denied that the guards in the choppers opened fire. In statements from Blackwater guards provided to the U.S. State Department and obtained by ABC News, the guards say they were fired upon by uniformed Iraqi police officers and others dressed in civilian clothes from multiple locations near the traffic circle. Still images provided to the network show a Blackwater vehicle pocked with five bullet marks. Anne Tyrrell, a company spokesperson, said shortly after the incident that the company “acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack in Baghdad … The ‘civilians’ reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire.”

Full Story Here:
Blackwater: The Confidential Iraqi Incident Report

 

WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.

Well, this isn’t looking good for the home team, but I am not going to blindly give Blackwater carte blanche and declare there is NO WAY they could have done this, and that is the exact same thing I said regarding the troops, Marines and Army, that have been brought up on charges lately, let the investigations take place and the chips will fall where they may.

Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.

The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.

If they’re not authorized to speak, why do they?? Is this something that the public has a serious need to know of at this particular time?? Is this a matter of grave national security??

No, it’s not, on either count, and it’s things like this that makes the job that much harder for the investigators trying to uncover all the facts, IF there have been improprieties, wouldn’t this anonymous outing of information make those involved take their operation underground so to speak?? These guys are specialists and they have the ability to simply disappear, it’s what they do.

In Saturday’s editions, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that two former Blackwater employees – Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. – are cooperating with federal investigators.

Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, and aided and abetted another in doing so, according to court papers viewed by The Associated Press. In their plea agreements, which call for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.

There’s an old axiom that says, “2 people can keep a secret if 1 of them is dead…”, and there’s a lot of truth in that, IF you’re going to be involved in weapons smuggling you must have cohorts, and by having cohorts, IF your operation is discovered, someone is going to sing like a canary, it’s human nature, no one is going to take a fall by themselves if they can get a lighter sentence by taking you down with them.

I’m not saying that there have been any more Blackwater people involved, who knows, the 2 listed above may be the only ones and are just shooting in the dark and hoping for something to fall into place, and then again, maybe there is a deeper involvement, but the Bush administration needs to tread lightly and proceed with extreme caution on this matter, you never know WHERE the orders come from in the spook business, and the possible implications may be catastrophic, and there’s always a trail.

Read this one all the way through, it’s a good read, and there are some interesting points brought up and the possible implications are quite interesting.

Full Story Here:
Feds Target Blackwater in Weapons Probe

EDIT TO ADD:
Iraq Expands Blackwater Investigation

When it goes bad in Iraq, it goes really bad, I think someone has a bone to pick with Blackwater.

BAGHDAD (AP) – The Iraqi government said Monday that it was revoking the license of an American security firm accused of involvement in the deaths of eight civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.

The Interior Ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday shooting. It was latest accusation against the U.S.-contracted firms that operate with little or no supervision and are widely disliked by Iraqis who resent their speeding motorcades and forceful behavior.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

“We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Khalaf said.

There is one thing for certain, the U.S. Army can’t do the job that the Blackwater guys have been doing, they are not allowed to work in the same manner, the Iraqi security forces can’t do the job that the Blackwater guys gave been doing because they are too stupid and have a serious lack of guts, and now the Blackwater guys can’t do the job that they’ve been doing because they did the job they are hired to do?? Confused yet?? Read on.

There’s going to be some wealthy Iraqis getting killed without the protection that Blackwater offers, and unless the Iraqi government is really as stupid and hypocritical as I believe it to be, my guess is that someone at Blackwater has pissed them off, the Iraqi government that is, because you can bet dollars to doughnuts on this one, Blackwater isn’t the only Merc outfit in Iraq and for damn sure they’re not the only ones that are pulling a trigger when necessary.

The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., provides security for many U.S. civilian operations in the country.

Blackwater, or their competition, also provide security for many wealthy Iraqis and their families, Iraqi diplomats and government officials and their families and visiting foreign diplomats, many other duties are performed by the employees of Backwater Security, they are a highly diversified group, those guys are the ultimate experience when it comes to being a professional hired gun, their loyalty is to the person(s) paying them, and they are outstanding at what they do.

The U.S. Embassy said a State Department motorcade came under small-arms fire that disabled one of the vehicles, which had to be towed from the scene near Nisoor Square in the Mansour district.

“There was a convoy of State Department personnel and a car bomb went off in proximity to them and there was an exchange of fire as the personnel were returning to the International Zone,” embassy spokesman Johann Schmonsees said, referring to the heavily fortified U.S.-protected area in central Baghdad also known as the Green Zone.

Officials provided no information about Iraqi casualties but said no State Department personnel were wounded or killed.

Read that last line again, no State Department personnel were wounded or killed, that means the Blackwater guys were doing their job in the way it was intended, it means MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, from folks that know what mission accomplished truly means, they brought their charges back home, safe and sound, they DID their job.

Blackwater personnel wear many different hats, but their primary mission in this incident was the protection of a U.S. State Department convoy, and it appears to me that the Blackwater personnel did their job well.

If the Iraqis wish to continue their enjoyment of the open ended support they are given by our President, they need to consider this, if the will of the American people turns very much more against them and our President, Iraq won’t be enjoying anything other than Sharia law, and maybe that’s not such a bad idea after all, and should that come to pass I’d be willing to bet that there will be some Iraqis screaming for the American security personnel to return and save them, people are funny that way, they don’t want the watchdog until after they’ve been burglarized, go figure.

Many of the contractors have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but none has faced charges or prosecution.

The above paragraph is an almost identical reprint from an AP story concerning Blackwater and other contractors dated Aug. 11th, I posted the story and made several comments HERE, it seems that this story is being recycled to a certain degree, and again I wonder, has Blackwater pissed of the Iraqi government?? This has been a running battle of sorts for quite some time.

Maybe it would be best if Blackwater and other security contractors were not allowed to guard U.S. State Department convoys, maybe it would be best if the U.S. military was given that particular task, along with a somewhat modified set of ROE’s, ones that consist of only one order, bring em ALL back alive and well, by ANY means.

I wonder how al-Maliki would like that little scenario??

Full Story Here:
Blackwater License Being Revoked in Iraq